Friday, March 4, 2016

Americans need a car to work or look for work

A big reason Americans keep a car, even if they have public transit, is they know that they may need to find and job anytime and want to be sure they can get to it, no matter where it is.

In 2007, the asset bubbles burst because people had to choose between the mortgage payment and the gasoline credit card payment. It's a no-brainer, you have to have gasoline to get to work, without work, the mortgage is going to get behind faster.

In 2016, people are weighed down by education loans and car loans. So this crash will be another #autosprawl crash.

Simple solution. Make urban buses fare-free and start the process of breaking the car monopoly.

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Free is Cheaper

How is free transit cheaper? Don't you have to make up for lost fare revenue? The answer is that your city will save so much money in other areas, and quality of life will improve so much that you will get back much more than the lost fares. Some examples are listed below. If you want to see specific numbers, see our spreadsheet here.

Increased return on investment. Public transit involves large fixed costs. When fares are gone, there are more riders per vehicle, getting more value from the investment.

Reduced parking costs. With free transit, fewer people will park downtown. City parking authorities can cost $180 million a year, paid by fines, which are just a tax on customers and delivery services.

Reduced traffic congestion. Studies have shown that the time lost in traffic costs urban economies hundreds of millions of dollars.

Less money exported for gasoline. A medium sized city can export 1 million dollars a day in gasoline money for cars. Free buses will reduce this considerably.

Better quality of life, priceless. In Hasselt, Belgium, when fares were removed, people in hospital started receiving more visitors.

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The Free Public Transit Blog and freepublictransit.org are products of the virtual community advocating fare-free urban public transportation. We collect and publish opinion, articles, data, and/or criticism. We do not accept paid advertising or financial donations. For material original to the blog and site there are no rights reserved. You can contact us through gmail/fpteditors.

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CFTE public transportation facts

85% of all transportation costs in the U.S. are related to private automobiles. [more]